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Sunfish (Ship)
At about the time that hammerships and squidships were first gaining popularity, the sunfish was introduced as an updated version of the obsolete angelfish. The much larger sunfish followed the same rough design as the earlier angelfish, but was a much heavier vessel, capable of dishing out and taking much more punishment than the angelfish. Intended solely as a combat vessel, the sunfish never became as popular as the much more versatile hammership or squidship. Crew Like its predecessor, the sunfish required relatively few sailors to handle it, allowing for many crew to be given over to manning weapons. Even with all these weaponeers, most sunfishes still carry at least a dozen marines. Most sunfishes in operation are military craft, and the crews follow a strict chain of command. A giff-operated sunfish will typically carry no marines due to the air considerations of the larger giff, as well as the fact that all giff weaponeers and sailors are expected to fight in any boarding actions. Ship Uses Warship - The sunfish was always intended for war, and the vast majority of such ships in service still serve this purpose. The bombards typically found on a sunfish in modern times are a refinement over the ballistas that would have taken their place when the sunfish was introduced. Lacking a ram, the sunfish was a compromise between the original purpose of the angelfish, a long-range combat vessel, and the requirements of combat with heavier vessels. One drawback of the sunfish in combat is that the majority of its weapons have very limited fields of fire. This is compensated by the heavy armour, which generally protects the sunfish long enough for it to bring its weapons to bear. Many giff-operated sunfishes will replace the ballistas in the mouth with bombards or greek fire projectors. Some giff ships even replace the top catapult and bottom ballista with bombards. Such ships are constantly searching for any way to make enough money to keep themselves supplied with enough smokepowder to operate all of their bombards, but are greatly feared. Other Configurations Swiftfish - this configuration is generally the only version of the sunfish that sees any use as a trader. A swiftfish abandons almost all of its weaponry in favour of cargo space, and will typically be armed only with a single medium catapult or jettison mounted on the top deck. While this gives the swiftfish a full 25 tons of cargo capacity, the under-defended vessel must now run from any pirates or raiders it encouters rather than fighting them. To accomplish this, the swiftfish is both stripped and topped out. This increases the minimum crew to 12 and reduces the armour rating to 4, but increases the maneuverability class to B, making it one of the most maneuverable ships in its size class. A few swiftfishes are also gutted to allow for even more cargo space (a total of 38 tons), but this is unpopular because it reduces the armour rating from the still fairly good 4 to 6, which is a dangerous proposition for a ship this lightly armed. A swiftfish will typically run with a crew of 15.